I'm confused - has Nikon published some kind of warning against non-OEM batteries with a warranty threat?

Generally-speaking, I avoid non-OEM batteries anyway. It seems like a silly place to skimp (like memory cards) and often you get lower-quality cells (which have some ugly risks) or less true capacity than the OEM. There are exceptions (I've heard good things about Sterlingtek, for example), but they can't possibly have the testing and quality resources the body manufacturers do. (I worked in the peripherals division of a technology company, and owned some power-related products, so this isn't a completely random opinion).

There are some phone and PC companies creating products that only accept genuine batteries - the battery-cell fires in the PC industry scared a lot of people. The incident rate was higher in knockoffs and/or batteries with the faulty cells that were getting charged with non-OEM chargers running more juice to charge the batteries faster. I haven't heard of a case where a company stated a non-OEM battery would void the warranty though...

DannerRegistered: Nov 19, 2012Total Posts: 266Country: United States

The Nikon manual warns against using third party batteries and states that doing so voids the warranty.

woosRegistered: Apr 10, 2012Total Posts: 270Country: United States

At least in the US they can't totally void the warranty for something like that. If the electronics inside died, sure, they could. If a defective button falls off the back of the camera or something though there's no way they could blame that on a battery (well, maybe i'm giving them too much common sense there).

M635_Guy wrote:
Generally-speaking, I avoid non-OEM batteries anyway. It seems like a silly place to skimp (like memory cards) and often you get lower-quality cells (which have some ugly risks) or less true capacity than the OEM. There are exceptions (I've heard good things about Sterlingtek, for example), but they can't possibly have the testing and quality resources the body manufacturers do. (I worked in the peripherals division of a technology company, and owned some power-related products, so this isn't a completely random opinion).

How many different OEMs are there for the cells themselves? I can't imagine there are too many.

woos wrote:
At least in the US they can't totally void the warranty for something like that. If the electronics inside died, sure, they could. If a defective button falls off the back of the camera or something though there's no way they could blame that on a battery (well, maybe i'm giving them too much common sense there).

Right. That's the Magnusson-Moss Act. IIRC the long and the short of it is that Nikon can't deny a warranty claim for using an unauthorized part unless the part directly caused the failure. That hasn't stopped Nikon from jerking people around of course. My money is on Nikon claiming "impact damage" if a third party battery damages the camera.

Nikon: Iím asking for a lot here, Santa, but Ďtis the season to help those in need.

First, if you could fit a quality control department in the sleigh that would be lovely.

Also, could you bring Nikon USA a reasonable Factory Service Center, too? If thatís not possible, then Iíll go ahead and ask you to bring them some customers in 2014 or so, because theyíll be needing new customers about then.

And Santa, if youíre feeling really generous, then maybe you could give Nikon the secret of electronic aperture control? Mechanical levers are sooooo 1960. Itís not like leaving out aperture control motor is making the lenses less expensive.